Midnight Lady

by Jamie K. Schmidt

  “I wasn’t breaking in,” Quick said.

  Black Belle looked him up and down, regarding him like a slab of meat. Her mouth quirked up. “How long have you known Maggie?”

  “A few years.”

  She grunted. “Be gone with you. And leave another one of those special reserves.”

  Quick took out his pocket humidor and placed it on the dressing table. “If you can tell me where she is, there’s a carton of them in it for you.”

  “I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  He could feel her eyes on him the entire way down the staircase until she shut the trapdoor and locked it.

  Gods be damned. Black Belle.

  He walked past his friends who were so deep into their poker game they didn’t notice him leaving. Yet when he looked back, he caught Niles staring at him. Quick nodded at him, and headed down to the beach.

  The panic had faded into a dull pain, and the restlessness was enough to make his head explode. He tried to walk off the anxiety, but all he got for his trouble was tired feet and a throbbing ache in his temples.

  Why hadn’t he demanded they share cell numbers or emails? Why hadn’t he pushed for more intimacy? He hadn’t realized how much Maggie meant to him until he realized he may never see her again.

  Taking the silver necklace out of his pocket, he ran it through his fingers. What could Amos Flannery want with Maggie? It had to be related to her days on Black Belle’s ship. Why didn’t Maggie ever tell him she worked on an airship crew?

  Jamming the necklace back into his pocket, Quick blew out an angry breath. These questions were getting him nowhere. He sensed a presence behind him and whirled to his feet, pulling a pulse pistol. He was looking for a fight to get rid of some of this helplessness.

  He felt a little ridiculous when a little girl with eyes like the sea stood there looking at him with a raised brow.

  “Sorry,” he said, holstering the pistol. “It’s been a rough day.”

  She held out a slip of paper. “From Black Belle.”

  Quick briefly wondered how she found him so quickly, but then he read what was on the paper. “Cantos. Midday Tomorrow.”

  The paper fluttered to the ground as he raced back to his airship, using his cell phone to recall all his crew back effective immediately.

  Chapter Six

  Maggie watched with some amusement as Ephraim mopped the deck and polished the brass. It wasn’t that he couldn’t work hard, he was just used to having other people do things for him. Derek, however, was having none of that and chewed him out when Ephraim half-assed it.

  “He won’t break,” she said, not turning around. She could smell Amos’ aftershave as he approached. If she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend that she was on another airship from a long time ago.

  But she wasn’t a little girl anymore who needed her daddy to hold her hand when the netherstorms got rough. The nethersphere still made her queasy, but she wasn’t going to cower in her stateroom all trip. If her grip on the handrails were a little tight, no one would notice it. She took deep, careful breaths as she stared out into the grey nothing.

  “It’s a win-win situation,” Amos said coming alongside her. “If he does, I get the reward from the Calgarians. If he doesn’t, I still get a clean ship, he’s prepared for what Belle is going to put him through, and he paid handsomely for the privilege. There’s room on deck for you too. I see repairs that could use your expertise.”

  “He’s paying handsomely for me to be a guest on this garbage scow, not work like an FNG,” she said.

  Amos looked mortally offended. “She’s no Belladonna, but she stood up to The Blackheart well enough.”

  “All those cannons.” Maggie shook her head. “People are going to start to think you’re overcompensating.”

  “Don’t be vulgar. I won’t have my daughter speak to me like a bar slut.”

  Maggie gave him a side eyed glare. Then she caught a whiff of brimstone and floral perfume. “Speaking of sluts...”

  Nicholette joined them at the railing. “We have a communication from Lena in Cantos. She’s warning us away.”

  “Our cargo is legal. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  “Except him.” Nicholette pointed.

  “No one knows we have Ephraim,” Maggie said, leaning against the railing so as not to have her back to her step mother.

  “You hope. I don’t want to come out of the vortex facing Calgarian battle cruisers.”

  “Where’s your balls?” Maggie sneered.

  “When you have to pay for a repair bill on an airship, you little bitch, then you can snipe at me.”

  “Ladies,” Amos warned.

  “Why don’t you ask Niles Black about it?” Nicholette squinted at her. “Are you fucking him?”

  “Are you?” Maggie returned with a smile.

  “I think I hear McMann calling.” Amos excused himself and when in the opposite direction of where Derek McMann was.

  “Why else would that fucking psycho take on us to get to you? What do you have on him?”

  That had been bothering Maggie as well. “He’s a patron at my bar, but I don’t even give him a discount on his drinks.”

  “Maybe you should start. Because his ship is out of commission. Rumor has it he’s out of the trade for the rest of the year.”

  Crossing her arms, Maggie glared at Nicholette. “Don’t you have anything better to do than ferret information?”

  “Information can be more profitable than diamonds. You’d best remember that.” Nicholette whirled and stormed away.

  Maggie restrained herself from mouthing her words to Nicholette’s back. She wasn’t fifteen anymore. She joined Ephraim on deck.

  “I’ve gone over that spot a hundred times. It’s ingrained into the wood. If you want it out, you’re going to have to sand it off.”

  “I don’t care,” Maggie said.

  “Oh, thank gods it’s you.” Ephraim leaned on his mop. “I’m not made for manual labor.”

  “Don’t tell that to Black Belle. Are you sure you’d rather be a pirate than a prince?”

  “King,” he said. “I don’t mind being a prince. It’s the whole getting married and impregnating a stranger that I’m running away from.”

  “I can relate,” Maggie said.

  Stretching, Ephraim put on hand on his lower back. “Seriously, though. I had the best tutors. I could be navigator.”

  “Have you ever not crashed a ship you were driving?”

  He made a face at her. “You know those weren’t my fault.”

  “Uh huh.”

  The ship slowed and lurched as the vortex appeared in the distance. It looked like Amos was going to ignore the warning and they were going to Cantos as scheduled. Still something felt a bit off. Maybe she was being paranoid, but she didn’t want to risk anyone seeing Ephraim.

  “Hey, we’re heading into port. Why don’t you go back to the cabin and take a nap?”

  “Because McMann will have my ass if I do.”

  “Derek is going to be too busy in Cantos to worry about you.”

  “Yeah?” Ephraim brightened.

  Maggie bit her lip. She wanted him below deck just in case there were any Calgarians.

  “It’s tempting, but I’m not going to have him tell Black Belle that I’m a slacker.” He secured the mop and bucket, in preparation for entry into Cantos.

  They went to the observation room off the bridge and buckled up. Amos nodded at them. Nicholette paced. When the ship hit the entry point, they steadied themselves on the bulkhead, but rode the netherwaves with the ease of long practice.

  On The Belladonna, Maggie could have turned cartwheels on the open deck during entry and exit. She knew that ship like her own body. Tamping down the nostalgia, they came into port to a rainy day above Cantos Prime.

  “Missile lock,” McMann shouted.

  Maggie stiffened and looked around, afraid to see the Calgarian ships. She ch
oked instead. It was The Quicksilver.

  “They’re hailing us,” Nicholette snarled.

  “Open a frequency and ready the cannon battery.”

  Derek took off in a run, while Nicholette dove for the communication panel.

  “I should help him.” Ephraim fumbled with his seatbelt and then tore off after Derek.

  “On screen.”

  Quick’s face filled the viewer. He looked coldly angry. What was he doing?

  “Donner, what the fuck is your problem?”

  “I’m here for your cargo. Give it up and this ends peacefully. I’m willing to double the price.”

  Nicholette and Amos exchanged a glance. Double what the Calgarians were paying was enough to retire on. It was times like these that Maggie wished she still had her pistol. If they decided to give Ephraim up, there wasn’t anything she could do.

  “My cargo is a thousand boxes of dried fish and a few hundred gallons of Ferriday Ale for the Muniz family. I’m sure they’d be willing to sell, and if not I can put you in touch with my buyer.”

  Quick smirked. “Your human cargo.”

  Nicholette and Amos exchanged another glance.

  “What makes you think we have human cargo?”

  “Surveillance video from the Cozumel docks.”

  “How about you hand over all copies of that video, and I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “I don’t have it. I’ve just seen it. And I want what you took, untouched and unharmed.”

  “Sorry, the cargo is not for sale.”

  “Then, I’ll have to take it by force.”

  Quick must be working for the Calgarians.

  “Suit yourself, Donner, but you’re going to be dry docked like your friend, Black.”

  “Then, I’ll have to board you and take your ship.”

  Maggie was impressed despite herself. Not many captains would dare to talk to Amos like that. He had a reputation of blowing smart asses out of the sky.

  The Nicholette was slowly rotating port side.

  “Missiles away,” Derek said over the ship’s speakers.

  “Fuck,” Quick snarled, and the space between the two ships filled with smoke and noise.

  Communication shut off, and the screen went blank.

  “Breach in the engine room. The fucker targeted our props.”

  “Go to the backup crystals. Get us out of here before he reloads.”

  He learned that trick from her mother. When the enemy thought they had you crippled in the air, switch over to a spare set of crystals and leave them in the dust.

  Quick fired off another round from his cannons. Amos didn’t bother to return fire, and they sped off. “Open a vortex.”

  “Why are we running?” Nicholette said. “We can dust that pathetic excuse for a ship.”

  “If I take out two of the Syndicate’s ships in a month, we’re going to have a lot of trouble on our hands.”

  Maggie craned her head to see where The Quicksilver had gone. It wasn’t behind them or coming alongside for another barrage. It was coming in above them. A ladder unfolded from his ship.

  The idiot was going to board from above at top speed.

  “Bunch of goody two shoes who want to regulate the nethersphere. They’re annoyingly powerful.” Amos followed her gaze up. “And ridiculously reckless. McMann, where is my vortex?”

  Derek spat out a bunch of coordinates, but Maggie didn’t see anything coalescing on the horizon. In fact, she didn’t see it at all until they hit it going full steam.

  The bigger ships allegedly had a better comfort rate when traveling in and out of a vortex—unless you hit it at full speed.

  This time Maggie blacked out from the pressure slamming into her.

  Chapter Seven

  When Maggie came to, she was lying in her bed in the room she shared with Ephraim on The Nicholette.

  “Quick,” she said, bolting upright.

  Only to have her father, put a hand on her shoulder and gently push her back down.

  “Rest for a bit. We lost him. We’re coming in hot, though, into Castle Crag. I’m going to need those coordinates.”

  Groaning, Maggie closed her eyes. “Give me a minute and I’ll navigate us through.”

  “Nicholette won’t allow that.”

  “Then, she’ll be blown out of the sky.” Worry for Quick ate at her. Maggie couldn’t give two shits about Nicholette’s delicate feelings.

  “Why can’t the two of you get along?” Amos asked.

  “Oh, I imagine it’s because I blame her for breaking up our family, and she’s jealous of the relationship we used to have.” She put emphasis on used to have.

  Like every little girl, she had adored her daddy. And then, he chose Nicholette over her. And her daddy became like every other man. No longer a superhero in her eyes, Amos lost her respect and a little bit of her love. Maggie wished she could dismiss him entirely, the way he had forgotten about them, but she was cursed to remember a time when they had been happy as a family.

  “Black Belle and I would never have worked out, even if there wasn’t a Nicholette.”

  That was probably true. Maggie swung her legs off the bed and sat for a moment gathering herself. “That doesn’t explain what happened with you and me.” She wasn’t even sure why she was poking at this old wound.

  “You were so angry at me.”

  “Still am.” She sighed. “You cheated on my Mom.”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  Maggie got up and stretched. “She made it my business.” Belle made sure Maggie knew every excruciating detail about her father’s double life.

  “I knew she turned you against me.”

  Her head throbbed. “Maybe, but you siding with Nicholette over every disagreement we had, solidified it.”

  “You were a child.”

  “I was betrothed to a prince. I would have become queen. You thought I was old enough for that. Yet, not old enough to contradict Nicholette when she was obviously wrong.” Maggie wobbled to the door. It bothered her that it still stung.

  Amos steadied her.

  Maybe if Maggie had been in the wrong and Nicholette had been right, it would have been easier to accept. But they almost lost a cargo and some airmen because Amos didn’t believe his own daughter.

  “I made some mistakes,” he said. “But you didn’t make it easy.”

  “I’m still not going to,” she said, but she let him lead her out of the cabin. “Is Ephraim all right?”

  “He’s helping McMann with the repairs. Donner is a motherfucker.”

  Daughter fucker, she thought with a grin.

  “The bastard targeted our props and engines. If we hadn’t had the backup crystals he would have had us dead in the sky. Don’t get me wrong, I would have blown his ship to netherdust. But it would have been a costly victory.”

  “What damage did you do to his ship?” Maggie hoped it came out as a casual question, instead of a plea for information.

  “McMann targeted his weapons, so he may be out a few missile ports.”

  “Has he tried to contact us?”

  “Not so far.”

  Maggie wondered if Quick would continue pursuit. But she wondered if it really was Ephraim he was after.

  “Have the Calgarians made contact?”

  “No.”

  She took a deep breath. Quick could have contracted for the greater bounty on Ephraim being delivered to the Calgarians instead of the cash for information leading to Ephraim’s capture. But from what she knew of him, he would have cut his losses after this fight.

  What if Niles had told him that she had been captured? Is it possible Quick came after her? An awed feeling of delight tickled the back of her throat as her heart raced.

  “If Quick hails us again, I want to talk with him.”

  “Why?”

  “I know him. Maybe there’s a misunderstanding.”

  “What kind of misunderstanding?” Amos asked suspiciously.

 
“I don’t know. That’s why I want to talk to him.”

  Amos stepped back and gestured her to walk ahead of him in the wheelhouse. “Give Maggie the navigation,” he said.

  “The fuck I will.” Nicholette’s spine grew rigid and her voice was pure poison.

  “Nicholette, she has the coordinates and knows how to fly this ship.”

  “Fly it into the ground,” Nicholette spat out. “I don’t trust her.”

  “Let my daughter at the helm,” Amos said.

  The other crew grew still at the command in his voice. Nicholette reacted like she had been slapped. “Fine.”

  Maggie winced. Nicholette would pay him for that later, but it was still a step she hadn’t expected him to take. “Thank you,” she said, gracious in victory. Maybe there was hope for them after all.

  She called up the entry vortex to Castle Crag from memory. It took the ship a few minutes to calculate the distance and the energy hummed through the ship.

  “Take it easy on the engines. We’re not up for another power entrance,” Amos said.

  With pleasure. Maggie wished she had taken a painkiller for her head. Easing them through the vortex, she kept the ship on the tight coordinates that wouldn’t activate Black Belle’s defenses.

  Fighting the urge to throw up the contents of her empty stomach, Maggie held on to the controls until they were floating into Castle Crag’s jungle.

  “What the hell happened here?” Amos said.

  Pure devastation.

  The planet was ninety percent jungle and ten percent castle that Belle’s family built rock by rock. The jungle was leveled. The lush green vegetation was brown and rotted on the ground.

  The weather was a constant drudge of storms, but even the hurricanes didn’t do this much damage. Nothing was ever dry on Castle Crag, but it was always full of life.

  Maggie couldn’t see any sign of that now. Not a bird. Not an insect. No humans or animals. She blinked back tears remembering her last words to her mother. They had been fighting. Black Belle had been enraged that Maggie was going to give up the good life that Belle had worked so hard to get for her.

  “Then, you marry Ephraim,” Maggie had said.

  “Ten years ago, and a pair of tits like yours and I would have.”